Conservative Bias in the Media

the American Dream has turned into the American Nightmare for far too many!

Well, if every immigrant comes here because of the American Dream, and think if they work hard enough they can make something of themselves - why the rush to round them up and deport them?

And Socialism is quite often a mis-used word. It is used in a perjorative sense mostly by those for whom labels are easier than discussions.

Only the ones here illegally.

What do you mean by "That" ?

Not to patronize you, McGentrix -- but when you express a strong opinion like that, you could help us a lot by giving us a quote so we can see which specific argument you are attacking. Thanks!

-- Thomas

I think you might be right; luckily, as dys pointed out, "pure socialism like pure capitalism is a non-existentent ideal". Approximations of neither of them have turned out very succesful, though of course it all depends on what you call "successful". Which brings me to an aside to Setanta:



You mean in China socialism is not failing? Not failing in what?

Apart from that apparent defence of Chinese communism, everyone here seems to be occupied in defending the "mixes of private and government control". Isn't it cool to find ourselves all more or less in agreement once in a while, even if it's not actually about the topic of the thread? <grins>

And still y'all are fighting, and not about what would seem to be the remaining question of contention - how much of socialism should be mixed in with the capitalism, or vice versa, in such a mixed model. Instead, the fight seems to be to defend the name of socialism against Scrat by pointing to Medicare/Mediaid or "the European nations". I'm with Scrat here on the definition thing. Social-democracy is not socialism. As I keep insisting to Anastasia, we do not have socialism here in Holland - it just seems that way to an American. We don't even have much of a social-democracy anymore.

True, I mean, the problem dys indicates with BBB's suggestion "we all concede that extremist[s], no matter whether left or right, are looney candidates". "Mainstream value" can not be used, by itself, to figure out who's "loony". The Communist regimes called those dissident intellectuals "fringe figures" - and when it came to the strident determination to resist of some of them, in Brezhnevite times when so many compatriots had long made their pact of tolerance with the regime, they were probably correct. Was borne out by post-revolution elections, too, when the most principled of former dissidents were either marginalised or left out altogether. Take Kovalev or Bonner in Russia for example. Didnt make them any less right, though. Like Scrat said, "the problem is that your mainstream thinker may be my extremist (or vice versa)" - and just sometimes someone most everyone thought was an extremist turns out to be right.

nimh

Editorial policies of bias are usually not written. Does not mean they dont exist. At a meeting I was at, someone who worked in the UK print media himself told me about how at one of the main tabloid papers, the owner would personally insist on new headlines for articles when he thought the headline was too 'soft'. Thus an in itself reasonable article about asylum-seekers would be tagged with a sensationalist, scare-mongering headline - which is what would stick of course. Was his bias about politics or money (sale figures)? Both, probably. Was it a written down policy? Course not.

I had a post about this topic on that other thread on bias in the media, but it was gulfed up by the shadow of the Thomas/Scrat debate then - perhaps I'll have better luck this time?

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The problem that's bigger than actual overt political bias is this complex of instinctual biases at work in a journalist's day-to-day business. For most journalists, any political bias they might have is overridden by - mostly undeliberate - biases such as: will i create a sensation with this & become famous, will this be a scoop for the paper, who do i have in my cellphone memory that i can ask for comments quickly, does this approach help me meet my deadline, what will the advertizers think about this story ...

The scoop/'tasty'-story/shock-value factors will encourage stories/angles on crime, law and order, war, terrorism, scandals, welfare abuse, illegal immigrants, etc; and discourage angles on education, development issues, gradual social change, poverty, labour conditions/trade unions, etc - and I'll leave it to you to conclude whether the net result is a more 'liberal' or more 'conservative' appeal to the reader's emotions emanating from the pages.

The "who can I quickly ask for comments, how do I get my story done in time" factors encourage relying on governmental / official sources, domestic sources, acknowledged experts that are "known from TV" (preferably from within the Beltway), retired generals, etc; and will discourage seeking new, grassroots, oppositional or foreign voices. Again, I'll leave it up to you to conclude what 'liberal' or 'conservative' impression this engenders, however undeliberately, on the whole.

The latter kind of factors will also discourage the digging in oneself, to research a story in-depth, on the spot, or to doublecheck a story with sources from other backgrounds. It is much quicker and easier to write a scandalous (and thus good-selling) story on "how the French are helping Saddam's officials to get new passports", relying solely on anonymous DC officials, as the Washington Post did (a thread here was devoted to it), than it is to dig in and research, in France, Iraq and at home, to what extent there is actual basis, precedent, or credibility for such allegations, and if there isn't, who in DC then is spreading the story in question and why.

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Overall, journalism is very sensitive to various laws of theatre - a story needs to have a good guy and a bad guy, it needs to offer the prospect of a good ending, at least, and the whole plot of the story needs to take place within an overseeable range of time, or the viewer's concentraton will be lost; the viewer needs to be involved in the action, if only by proxy, characters in the story should immediately be recognizable to the viewer, reconfirming stereotypes if need be; and every episode needs a cliffhanger.

Some kinds of stories do much better in terms of these criteria than others. They are not necessarily also the stories that are most important, ultimately, to our lives. Environmental pollution is hard to describe in such terms, whereas the daily intrigue of DC politics easily is. And those stories that do meet the criteria are easily kneaded further into shape by both government officials and the journalists themselves, who in this respect have a common interest. Take wars, for example, which are easy to cover within these 'laws of theatre', if they dont last all too long, especially if they are "our" wars. Who wouldnt want to read a story about a heroic, female compatriot, lost on enemy terrain, then rescued by 'our' soldiers, with the help of a brave individual hero from the other side? Everybody's happy with that story - government, journalist, reader. Much happier than with the boring, protracted, unpromising story line of WMDs that are never found, for example.

The nuances of reality often fall victim to this entertainment/satisfaction factor. War in the Balkans must mean either brave, freedom-loving democratic Croatians versus dictatorial, Communist Serbs - or treacherous, fascist-Ustasha Croatians vs proudly independent, Partisan Serbs - or fiery, passionate Balkanese souls locked in their mountain people's instinctive urge for battle and the region's tradition of ancient ethnic hatreds. Those are easily recognized storylines, easy to either identify with or watch in romanticised shock and awe - with stereotypical roles we can quickly seem to comprehend, place and judge on.

A story that would involve people just like you or me, who one day lived modern lives, yet a year later were fighting bloody battles, because a convolution of political manipulations had triggered escalating mutual fears, distrusts and closings of ranks - that's harder to sell. To have to see the parallel with how easily we ourselves are stirred up against those bloody French, those scary Muslims, those arrogant Yankees, is more uncomfortable, more difficult - we'd rather zap on. And since the one and single overriding motivation of today's hypermarketized media is to prevent us from zapping on, they'll tailor their story to our wishes. That's the really dangerous bias in today's journalism, whether left or right.

Rather than suggest to me what i mean, why don't you read what i wrote? In response to the remark Scrat made about socialism, I suggest that the Chinese wouldn't agree with him. That too hard for you to pick up? Go pontificate to someone else--how very smug of you. There was no defense on my part of Chinese Communism--the only way it were apparent would be to you, after you've decided to interpret what i've written to suit your agument. Give me a break, o.k.? Whether or not you agree, the Chinese consider their government socialist, and whether or not you agree, they consider their government a success (sure many in China would disagree, but i'm gettin' is a childish slanging match over that). Don't put words in my mouth, i don't do it you.

In the movie, and in the book, "All the King's Men," I was most struck by the conditions set by the editor of the Washington Post - Ben Bradlee. His reporters had to verify everything by at least three different sources before a story could be printed.

I think this is a very good policy that has, perhaps, somehow been lost or not observed in recent years. Questions of bias always come up, always have. But if something has to be verified by at least three different sources (and no two people ever tell exactly the same story), then the odds are greater that there will be some truth and less bias.

I also think that the distinctions between reporting and editorializing have become somewhat blurred, and this indicates a lack of good editing.

One of the difficulties with media such as Fox is that, although they advertise themselves as fair and balanced, they are not hesitant about being biased in all their media reporting. Murdoch, after all, made his name in tabloid reporting, which goes beyond bias into another world.

Opinions are always biased - they are subjective, after all. But many opinions are presented as facts, without any back-up of factual material.

Maybe you should be getting into one -- I don't know of any serious, workably representative poll in which a majority of continental Chinese said that their Maoist system of the sixties and seventies was superior to the less socialist system they have now. I also know of no serious poll where they say their socialist system compares favorably with capitalist alternatives in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Current migration patterns between China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the US certainly suggest otherwise. In all cases, more people emigrate out of China than immigrate into China. If you know any evidence to support your case that "they" consider their system a success, I'd be happy to see it.

Of course, I suspect you're holding the above-quoted position just because you want to disagree with Scrat. Sorry if that's putting words into your mouth.

-- Thomas

Segway Not Fair and Balanced

Now that the Fox News Channel has declared victory in the propaganda war against Iraq and anyone not in favor of it, they've set their sights on a new target: the Segway personal transporter and its inventor, Dean Kamen.

Fox's vitriol comes as a result of an incident involving President George W. Bush, who fell off a Segway at his family's Kennebunkport, Maine compound. The Segway is, by all accounts, self-balancing, and should not be prone to such accidents.

"Obviously, the Segway is not fair and balanced, unlike Fox News, which is always fair and balanced," Fox star Bill O'Reilly panted. He then began a six-minute monologue which bored this reporter to tears, but the general gist of which was that Fox News is good and liberals are spawned from carp and platypi.

Various other news anchors and commentators on the network have expanded the attacks. Sean Hannity branded Segway inventor Dean Kamen "a God-forsaken liberal for inventing a mode of transportation that does not support the US automotive industry or the oil that fuels it." Neil Cavuto called for the Justice Department to investigate Kamen and his company, DEKA Research and Development. "What kind of man makes his money by thinking?" Cavuto wanted to know. "To me, thinking is like plotting, and if he's plotting something, then we've got to stop him now, before he can execute whatever he's up to."

Kamen, reached at his office in Manchester, New Hampshire, had this to say: "Based on the photos I've seen, it appears President Bush was not using the Segway properly. We provide a very detailed manual of instructions and require training classes to ensure the Segway is used appropriately. As a result, I can only conclude that Mr. Bush is a idiot."


The Daily Hog

Thomas, that's a cheap shot--you know damned well that the Chinese government consider themselves socialist, and successful. My comment was not directed toward the Cultural Revolution, nor does it concern itself with what the continental chinese felt in the sixties and seventies. I would ask you what you contend is the sentiment of every member of any socieity. The United States is filled with Mexicans who retain their native citizenship, and even if they die here, they dream of going home to live out their days in the beloved homeland of their birth--your argument from immigration is less compelling than you may like to think. Scrat's statement that there has never been a successful socialist government is simply one to which i replied, ironically, that i thought the Chinese might not agree. Do you suggest that i should have done a statistical analysis first? Scrat, that was statement with which 3.175% of the Chinese would not agree?

Of course, I suspect you're just holding the above-stated position because you want to disagree with me.

Heheee -- that just about sums up Fox: We must not let the vice of thinking rear its ugly head ever again! Nice excerpt, PDiddie!

-- Thomas

PD

That is the funniest thing I've read in a while...thank you kindly!

I thought this was absotively high-larious . . . a reasonable conclustion.

Mr Kamen is OBVIOUSLY quilty of thinking, a clear violation of Ashcroft's Patroit Act. Is Gitmo in in his future?

While I certainly enjoy disagreeing with you, I think this particular disagreement rests on the fact that you use "The Chinese government" and "The Chinese" interchangeably. If your point was that the Chinese government thinks China is socialist, and that China's political system is a success for the people who run the Chinese government, I would agree. I just don't think it's very interesting to ask what the Chinese government thinks of its own work. The interesting question is what the Chinese people themselves think of their social system and the government that runs it. On this point, I would expect that they don't find their form of government successful compared to the alternatives available to the Chinese who live in Hong Kong and Taiwan.


The way you phrase the question, I don't contend anything at all, because there is no such thing as the sentiment of every member of society. I think it's much more meaningful to ask what the majority of people in a society think, or which preferences they reveal by their actions. Migration is one action that reveals people's preferences about countries.


I don't suggest that you do a statistical analysis first, but I do suggest that you don't say "the Chinese" when you mean the small majority of Chinese that happens to run the government.

-- Thomas

thought crimes here, thought crimes there, thought crimes everywhere; when do they come for my books?